The path to a cryptocurrency revolution might just run through a sleepy Austin, Texas industrial park, home to offices of Cody Wilson and his company, Defense Distributed in the United States. Parallels exist between downloadable files from a website, allowing users access to 3D printable firearms, and a permissionless, decentralized, censorship-resistant medium of exchange. If the world’s most powerful government succeeds in preventing Mr. Wilson from engaging in basic speech, hold on to your electronic wallet because it could be next.
Also read: Report: 15,000 Twitter Crypto Scam Giveaway Bots
You Are Responsible Enough to Read Unapproved White Papers and Controversial Firearm Schematics
The fate of cryptocurrency’s future could very well rest in the hands of a 30-year-old former law school student who has been called The Most Dangerous Man in the World by Wired magazine. No one could have foreseen this, of course, least of whom Satoshi Nakamoto when he delivered his white paper, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System not quite a decade ago.
In it, the pseudonymous author went about detailing technical aspects of a trustless digital cash system with a decentralized audit log, a database conferring immutability for transaction recordings. The history is well known by most Bitcoiners, and today an entire universe of variations on that Bitcoin theme have sprouted.
They’ve done that because, for the most part, a healthy portion of the world has access to critical information regarding cryptocurrencies. And it is a universe unto itself: initial coin offerings, alternative coin projects, tokenizing, blockchain technology, speculation, exchanges, crypto loan products, etc. The list is virtually endless. What is in store for decentralized, digital money is in large measure up to how governments react.
A sizeable number of enthusiasts
